.....well it all began in 1991 when my father denied me the opportunity to purchase a 1974 Mazda RX-3 coupe as my first car (during my first year of an engineering degree - would have made a great daily for a uni-student). Geez I wish I had that car now! ....but then again, I may not have travelled the path that I have.

So what would be the next best thing to owning a Mazda rotary powered car? A Mazda piston powered car of course! A friend of my fathers had a wholesale car yard and had just taken delivery of a one owner 1982 Mazda 626 Super Deluxe with a meagre 110,000km on the clock. Being a super deluxe it was a five speed and had air-conditioning. $4,200 later and she was mine!

All was well for a couple of years of to and from uni until the valve stem seals stopped doing what they should be, and the MA 2 litre started to have a drinking problem of the oil kind. So a freshen-up was in order and this is where the journey began.

Here's some photos of her from 1992...

I'll continue to document its history as I find time over the next few weeks.....there's another 18 years of mods to go!!!

Mate, JNC is alive with the sounds of RWD 626's! Looks forward to the read Danny!

_________________Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

As stated the valve stem seals had pretty much given up the ghost and were letting copious amounts of oil into the combustion chamber.....which made for a fantastic smoke screen on start-up! Actually now that I think about it, the above photos were taken after the full rebuild that ensued.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the engine build....actually I don't have any engine bay photos from this era at all! So you'll have to imagine how the MA looked with a 34ADM Weber carby from a Ford XE Falcon, a Lynx foam filter, 4 into 1 Pacemaker headers and an electronic distributor from a HB series Mazda 929. Internally the whole rotating assembly was balanced (clutch to front pulley), the compression left at a massive 8.6:1 , a bit of head porting and polishing, topped off with a 30/70 camshaft regrind. All this culminated in a huge 85 rwhp at 5,500rpm!!! Not bad considering the series 2 626 MA 2 litre only generated 75 fwhp in factory form.

This engine served me well for a couple of years.....then one very late night upon return from Willowbank Raceway (Summernationals)....New Years 1994 IIRC.....I was cruising along South Pine Road at Everton Park (right outside the Primary school at the top of the hill for those of you who know the area)...when there was this almighty bang and the engine just cut out ....then no starty! . So it's 1am and this was back in the day before everyone had mobile phones. I had no idea where the closest public phone was, so what did I do? I locked the car up...not as though it was going anywhere in a hurry .....and started running to a mates place at McDowall some 3km away to call my parents to bring the family car (1981 Ford XD Falcon) and a rope! After gingerly towing it near 10 kilometres back to Albany Creek we put it under the house and closed the garage door....by this time it was after 3am in the middle of Summer so the sun was due to rise in under 2 hours.

The next morning a few of my uni mates came round to help me diagnose what had failed. First we checked for spark....yup all good....second we checked for fuel....yup all good....third we checked that the carby was clear ie. getting air. We cranked the engine and got a couple of kicks but still no go. So we pumped the accelerator pedal a few times to get plenty of fuel in....then cranked her again....when all of a sudden there was this explosion...the engine oil dipstick shot up out of the engine bay and hit the floor above! There was something very wrong.....so off with its head! After pulling the cam cover off it was immediately clear what had happened...I can't remember exactly which valve of which cylinder had a cracked valve spring but this loss of tension released the valve collets sending the valve on a one way trip into the combustion chamber. I'm sure you can all imagine the destruction that ensued. One f'ing big hole in the crown of a piston and a well and truly minced head caused by the remnants of the valve head bouncing around. I still have the head of the valve which I fished out of the sump and the piston and rod buried in the shed somewhere as a memento of the last piston engine that was to reside between the chassis rails of the 626 .

[edit] - Piccie of broken bits added!

Stay tuned for part 3. There will be lots of piccies to come.

Cheers,
Danny

Last edited by L10B on Sat Sep 25, 2010 5:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

There was no way I was going to put another MA back in that car...or even another piston engine for that matter! But where was I going to get the powertrain I so desperately wanted? Well the timing of the engine blow-up was impeccable...a mate of mine had just finished building a new engine (large extend port 13B) for his RX-2 rally car, however CAMS decided to discontinue the class that he had built the car for and had to revert back to the original 12A! What a shame!!! So after the transfer of some hard earned cash the engine was mine...now where to find a suitable gearbox .

During the Xmas break in 1992 I did some "industrial experience" for my mech eng degree at a business called Mazsprint (which a few of you will remember). During this time I was able to build a rapport with the business owner and the employees. At this stage in my life I was rather green in automotive experience so I had them undertake the installation of the engine and gearbox. It was determined that a series 1 RX-7 gearbox would be the best option as it positioned the gear lever in the original position. Due to my limited budget at the time we went down the path of using the series 3 RX-7 oil to water cooler. As you will see later this was replaced with the far more efficient front mounted oil to air cooler.

Piccies of the completed install....

Later in 1995 I saved up some money and splurged out with the purchase of the newly released Momo Race leather steering wheel...which still resides in the car to this day. This was really the beginning of the 10 year restoration and modification of the 626.

Cool work Danny!!Ah Mazsprint they were the days. There's a hairy impostor in those photo's mate!!!!

_________________Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

_________________Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

I was scanning some negatives in tonight and found a couple of photos of the RX-2 Rally car that donated its engine to the ORX-626. The RX-4 type 13B engine was Hyper Ported (Opening flank of the inlet port was right on the edge of the side seal path....you couldn't bridge port this large extend port as there was no meat left for the bridge).

Mate, who owned the rally car? Remember knowing a guy way back I got a 12A twin off he ran in a rally car before a 13B?

_________________Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

I've still got that 12A twin dizzy in the collection mate!! Still turns over as well, one of the motors I'll be cleaning up for display at the museum. Sorry to be rabbiting on in your thread mate!

_________________Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!